Cruel Diagonals

Megan Mitchell composes unsettling, ethereal music under the alias, Cruel Diagonals. A jazz and classically trained vocalist, Mitchell performs and creates in numerous capacities. Some of her current endeavors include co-curating a multimedia night in Seattle called Estranged Sensation; acting as proprietor of the left-of-field music index for women/trans/non-binary composers, Many Many Women; and researching, visiting, and documenting places of abandoned industry around the Pacific Northwest with her field recorder and camera in tow. Mitchell is additionally a master’s candidate for library and information sciences at the University of Washington, specializing in audio archiving. She is currently processing the audio archives of music producer, Randall Dunn.

Cruel Diagonals is an outlet for destructive sample processing, vocal exploration, and a palette for inter-media contemplations and applications. Influenced by early experimental filmmakers such as Luis Buñuel and Maya Deren, Cruel Diagonals has been described in cinematic terms, evoking moods and montages of an eerie, surrealist timbre. Warped field recordings and layered vocals incite a beckoning to a phantasmagorical, metallic-tinged state of existence.